Discover. Display. Protect.

Be sure to check out the latest issue of Shades of the Departed magazine. Not only is the issue chock full of school days memories and vintage photos, but I was given the opportunity to tell the Friends Album story (see page 36). Enjoy!

Last weekend, I drove down to Richmond, Va., to retrieve two trunks that once belonged to my dad when he was an officer in the Army Reserves. My half-brother had them and gave me one to keep for myself and one to give to my sister. They are really pretty awesome connections to my dad’s military past. They are stamped with the same ID number that was printed on his dog tags.

The smaller of the two trunks.

The top of the larger trunk.

The trunks can nest together and are part of a larger set of 7(!) that has been split up among family members. Apparently, Dad traveled with all seven at the same time while stationed around the world. I never want to hear anyone complain again about how much I pack for a trip. I apparently get my preparedness from my dad.

Note: I’m assuming the blue line on the trunks indicates something — either rank or branch of service. Anyone know?

Dear Reader: Do you think you are related to the individuals listed in this post? Please drop me a note! I love hearing from cousins and others researching my family!

One of my 4th great grandfathers was Obediah Basham, who was born on April 7 in 1760 (or 1758, according to some records) in Cumberland County, Virginia. He was a Revolutionary War soldier and there is a lengthy pension file about him (I still need to transcribe it). Numerous folks have used him as entree into the DAR. He has a FindaGrave page, but no photo of his gravestone in Kentucky (his wife’s is available and it is crudely engraved). Obediah’s daughter Delilah married into the Corley family.

I didn’t really come close. Here are my monthly goals (only one of which I met):

Processing one document/source per week (if not more) into my RootsMagic database.

Writing at least one blog post per week.

Reading one genealogy book per month.

Exploring one new technology per month.

And taking one genealogy-related trip every two months.

I did get in enough blog posts to average out to one per week, but that’s about it. I only got in a few hours of personal genealogy time last week — the rest of my genealogy research time went to a client project.

Here is the main reason why I didn’t accomplish anything else:

Maggie came into my life 3 weeks ago and has been occupying a lot of my time (not that I’m complaining). She’s a 1.5-year-old Lab-mix rescue and she is the best dog on the planet.